[at-l] Trip Report: Ct. -> Vt. Last Part - Vermont

[papa_bear_nyc@yahoo.com (Papa Bear)]

Here is the last section of my trtip report.

All photos are at: http://gallery.backcountry.net/papabear_section_2
The Web based version (with photos) or the trip report is at:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2h6gy/papabear/AT_section_2.html
Note: the text for this part of the account (this email) will be integrated
with the web version sometime later tonight.

Enjoy
Pb

VERMONT

Off all the states we have yet to pass through Vermont was the closest to
our expectations.  The trails are very wet, often muddy.  But I would say
they were also among the most well built and maintained of any that we have
encountered to date.  Thankfully, we were largely spared the black flies,
primarily because we hit a cold spell with snow on the ground at locations
much above 2000 feet.  And this in Late May.  The weather, although we know
it's always unpredictable, was shall we say "surprising".  We entered
Vermont on a Sunday afternoon having experienced 8 inches of snow on Mount
Greylock the day before.  Until the last night the temperatures were below
freezing each night and hardly above 40 during the days.

A beautiful way in which elevation, latitude and weather can mimic climate,
was seen in our descent from Stratton on day 9.  From heavy snow cover under
Balsam Fir near the top, down through Red Spruce, mixed hardwoods (not yet
in leaf) and finally to very a green deciduous forest at the lower
elevations.

The other word I would use is "wild".  Towns were few and far between and
cross roads were more often than not unpaved Forest Service roads.  Cell
phone reception was largely non-existent.  From the lovely southern New
England valleys with their farms and towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts,
we encountered only forest for miles and miles in every direction.  Even
from the top of Mount Stratton, the highest peak we climbed, there were only
forests and mountains to be seen in all directions.  Nearby towns such as
Bennington and Manchester were hidden from view.  We could,  just for a
moment, pretend were were in a forest before the Europeans arrived.  But
then we would soon come back to the trail with it's fellow hikers, shelters,
stone and log steps, etc and we knew we were in the 21st century.  As many
others have been before us, we were torn between our appreciation of the
well maintained trail and it's amenities on the one hand, and the feeling
that we wish the place were more wild - totally wild - on the other.  But of
course then we wouldn't really belong there with our high tech equipment,
freeze dried food, fleece clothes and digital camera.  The thought would
reluctantly pass, and we would hike on - enjoying the beautiful scenery.  We
look forward to the even wilder and more remote places that await us as we
work our way north to Katahdin.
============================

Day 11: May 20, 2002
Seth Warner Shelter to Melville-Neuheim Shelter
Weather: Morning temperature 25.  Cold, clear sunny.  Clouding over.

We were up as usual by 6:00 AM.  Dexter, who was with us in the shelter, was
the only other one who was up early, the rest were quiet in their tents
except the Canadian couple who had gotten an even earlier start. We got off
by 7:15.  Dexter was still fiddling with his pack and shoes.  As we left the
Old Vets had rolled out of their tent.  As we said good bye, one of them
asked us what our pack weight was.  I said about 35 lbs (probably a slight
overestimate).  He didn't say anything but he gave a look like he probably
was carrying much more than that.

The hiking was not too bad - good hiking weather.  At the first viewpoint
(the book called it an unnamed peak at elevation 3000'), I took off my rain
pants (which I wore for warmth) and stripped to my fleece shirt and shorts.
We passed the Canadian couple later in the morning and curiously, although
they seemed to be making similar daily mileage as we were, we did not see
them again.

We passed some nice ponds and an impressive beaver dam that was shaped like
a horse shoe and must have been 8 feet high.  Later we reached a more
impressive one: it was built up against the log bridge (truncheon) along the
outlet of a pond and the pond level was about a foot above the trail and was
flowing over it. Those busy beavers!  The trail was almost always wet, but
most sections were well built with stepping stones or logs, but an
occasional mud patch was encountered.

It had become cloudy and there were a few snow flurries.  It was quite cold
when we stopped, but was a good temperature for hiking.  We stopped at the
Congdon Shelter for lunch.  Dexter had earlier passed us and was also at
Congdon.  The weather was nice when the sun came out, but otherwise a bit
chilly.

The afternoon walk was similar.  We moved through a mixed Beech / Birch
forest which was still not in leaf.  It brought back memories of our April
hike through New Jersey and New York.  Spring is slow to come in the high
points of New England.  After enjoying a nice view from Hamlin Hill, we made
a very steep descent to Route 9.  The stone work here was impressive.  Again
and again I was impressed with the trail building in Vermont, known for very
wet and rugged territory.  They have done a great job on these trails.  We
took a short break at the stream next to the highway and met 2 young college
aged guys fiddling with their packs.  We got started up the other side
hoping to get the jump on them in getting to the shelter which was just a
couple of miles past the road.  The ascent was as impressive as the descent
with impressive stone work.  The 2 guys soon bounded past us (ah youth!).
We met them a short time later at the shelter.  They were Tyler and Mike.
They had camped the night before at the top of that unnamed peak we had
passed.  They too had first gone to Seth Warner, but when they saw the
Canadian couple's tent in the shelter they had moved on another mile or so
to the hill top.  It had an impressive view but would not be my choice for a
tent site.  Rather cold and exposed..

We arrived at Melville-Neuheim Shelter at around 3:00 PM and a short time
later Dexter joined us.  It was not large, with double bunk platforms on
either side of a narrow center space. We divided up the bunks between the 5
of us.  It was cold and cloudy with temperatures probably in the 30s.  Soon
thereafter 3 more guys (Jake, Matt and Bret) arrived.  At first I thought
they were the 3 that had been at Seth Warner (the ones we passed at the
state line), but it was another group that had actually started the LT from
Williamstown that day, and had done over 18 miles.  The leader was an
aggressive young guy who had laid out plans for 18+ mile days on into the
next week.  Some of his colleagues seemed a little dubious.  As a side note,
in all of Vermont I didn't meet a soul, young or old,  who used a trail
name.

Quite a bit later, around 5:30 or 6:00 I was looking around and there seemed
to be an extra person.  Fresh Air said there were actually two more (Chris
and Clint) that had arrived while I wasn't looking.  They were the remnant
of the group of 3, and had trailed the lead pack by almost 2 hours.  This
seemed like an unstable group.  They prepared supper and they all seemed to
have enormous plastic bags full of raman noodles.  I guess theirs was a
simple diet.  Then there was another huge bag of candy bars - the little
ones you give out at Halloween, so I guess that was lunch.  They were all
tired, but nonetheless they were careless with their food.  We noticed the
next morning that a couple of them had left their food bags just sitting on
the picnic table.  They won't last the way to Canada that way.  If the bears
don't get their food, the mice will.  Lucky for them it was such a cold
night.

Somehow we all squeezed into the shelter - the ground was a bit cold and
muddy for setting up tents.  There were 2 on top on one side, 3 on the
bottom bunk, and two on the floor with about a foot of head room under the
bottom bunk.  Just their heads were sticking out.  Anyone who had to get up
for a middle of the night to pee was likely to step on a face unless they
were very careful.  Us 3 older guys were on the other side in relative
spaciousness.  I thought there were 11 in the Shelter but I can't figure who
the eleventh was so I guess there were just 10.  It was hard to tell, 10 or
11.  When you tried to count them they would move!

Day 11 Trail Miles 13.1; Other Miles 0.0
Total Trail Miles 146.1; Total Miles 151.3
============================

Day 12: May 21, 2002
Melville-Neuheim Shelter to Kid Gore Sheler
Weather: Morning temperature 30, Thin clouds.

The 3 of us "older" guys were up early.  the other folks slept in while we
got our stuff together and made breakfast.  This was just as well since if
all 10 of us tried to get going at once it would have been chaos.  It felt
cold when we started, especially my gloves which as I said above were one
item of my clothing that was not really up to this weather.  Fresh Air had 3
pairs of gloves but he wasn't happy with any of them.

The first couple of miles were fairly easy ups and downs.   The trail in
this section was mostly dry.  At the first break I shed some clothes and was
happy to be hiking in shorts and fleece shirt again, with a wind breaker to
throw on when we stopped.  We hiked along Porcupine ridge and the snow cover
was deep again.  As we got to Little Pond lookout the snow was 3 - 4 ".  It
seemed to diminish a little every day, but with the temperatures as cold as
they were it never really melted.  Up here the trail was no longer a
continuous track, but rather little bits and pieces between areas of snow
cover.  A little later we noticed a strange site to the south west, perhaps
10 miles distant.  We saw first 4 , then when we looked more carefully, 7
wind generators along the top of the ridge.  The had tall towers and 3 very
long and slowly moving blades.  I know these have been controversial among
the environmental community.  Some seeing them as an alternative to burning
fossil fuel, others seeing them as an eyesore.  To me they weren't exactly
an eyesore, just somewhat unexpected.  Heavens knows we see lots of things
on top of mountains, mostly old fire towers, sometimes radio towers.  These
weren't really worse, just different.

We got a good view of Glastonbury across the next valley, and then made the
ascent, stopping at the Goddard Shelter before the summit.  This has the
most magnificent views of any shelter we saw.  We were at Riga Shelter in
Connecticut which also has a great view, but that day it was unfortunately
raining.  The shelter also has a clever design, with a covered porch which
stood some 3 feet lower than the  main floor.  This made a convenient seat
and work area.  I've heard the black flies are bad here, but certainly you
couldn't imaging that on this cold day.  It would seem a great place to
stay, except perhaps the west facing view and exposure would make it rather
cold on nights like tonight.  While we were lunching, the 5 fast guys
drifted in to join us.  First the 3 "fast" fast guys, and then the 2 "slow"
fast guys.  It turns out they were all students from Plymouth College in New
Hampshire and were fairly experienced with hiking, being so close to the
Whites.  It was also ironic that the slowest of the 2 "slow" fast guys was
the twin brother to the second fastest of the "fast" fast guys.  I guess
it's more nurture than nature.  There seemed to be some problem a few of
them were having with their feet, but we moved on while they were working it
out.  The shelter was at about 3000 ' amid Red Spruce with a significant
snow cover.

The last half mile to the Glastonbury summit was steep with stone steps.
The summit itself was a bit of a let down.  It had no view, just a thick
Spruce forest and an old fire tower which was closed.  It was rather windy
and cold so we quickly moved on.  It had been a good hiking day so far and
we only had a few miles to go to get to our target, Kid Gore Shelter.  The
top of the ridge was rather flat through Red Spruce with a good snow cover,
and except for a tough boulder climb, we made it to Kid Gore with little
effort.

We had made the nearly 13 miles  today, including the climb over
Glastonbury, (at 3748', the first 3500+ peak we had yet climbed) rather
easily and arrived at Kid Gore at an early 2:30.  The shelter was about 50
yards off the trail and as we got ourselves settled, the fast guys moved on
by and we spoke to them briefly.  I think they had another 4 or 5 miles to
go to get to where they were headed so we said good luck to them.  We
figured unless the slept really late the next morning, we would not be
seeing them again.  Dexter was with us most of the way and would be staying
at Kid Gore tonight with us.  His pace and daily mileage matched ours pretty
well, as well as being an amiable guy so we were glad to have his company.
We also thought that we might have some more company tonight, perhaps the 2
guys we had first seen at Route 9 that were with us the previous night, but
it was not to be.

Kid Gore has a nice easterly view and seemed to be in a warmer little vale
than Goddard.  The view was actually cut away forest, big stumps were in
evidence in abundance.  Although we appreciated the view, I'm not sure it
makes sense to cut down a chunk of forest to achieve it.  We did our usual
chores and then as we were relaxing a bit, lo and behold it started to
sprinkle, and then to hail.  I brought in the stuff I had set out to dry,
and ee hoped the folks still on the trail were not getting too wet.

I would note that the shelters on both the upside (Goddard) and downside
(Kid Gore) of Glastonbury were well build and with nice views.  It turns out
there was a second, smaller shelter, just past Kid Gore on the trail
(Caughnawaga Shelter), but it seemed to be about the smallest shelter we had
ever seen (Fresh Air estimated it was "half" the size of Kid Gore, I'd say
not quite that small), and had no view whatsoever.  We obviously had made
the right choice.

After the rain and hail abated, the sun shone in patches on the valley in
front of us and lo and behold a rainbow appeared before us across the
valley.  Beautiful, fragile, and ephemeral. I don't see a lot of rainbows
(being from New York City) so this was a special treat to end a great day!

Day 12 Trail Miles 12.8; Other Miles 0.0
Total Trail Miles 158.9; Total Miles 164.1
============================

Day 13: May 22, 2002
Kid Gore Shelter to Stratton Pond Shelter
Weather: Morning temperature 30.  Sun, blue sky.

The morning weather was the familiar cold, clear and sunny.  If things were
true to form it would cloud over by mid day and be rather chill and cloudy
into the evening.  But somehow I thought today would be different and the
weather would change and the cold spell would be broken.  But either way it
was a great day to be in the woods in Vermont and we were off early.  As my
log says "Life is good!"

The big job for today was to hike up and over Mount Stratton (3941'), the
highest peak we would see on the entire hike.

As we got going the temperatures rose to the low 40s but the ground was
still frozen with patches of snow.  The first peak (an unnamed summit at
3412') was rather tiring but we soon got our second breath.  We passed 2
60ish SOBOs who said they had come from Story Spring (the next shelter) and
that there were 5 younger guys were there last night as well.  So it seems
our friends had made it OK to their intended goal for yesterday.  We were
with Dexter although we would occasionally go ahead since he liked to tinker
with his socks and other stuff but then he would generally catch up after a
half hour or so.

We passed Story Spring shelter, empty by this time, and crossed a dirt road
(I guess USFS 71) which had posted a notice that the bridge over Black Brook
up ahead had washed out, and that we could take a road walk around, or ford
it (the sign said remove boots and socks and ford the stream).  We said
basically "we ain't scared of no washed out bridge" so we went on to see
what we were up against. It took a while to get there and we crossed one
very deep still stream which made us a bit apprehensive.  When we finally
got to Black Brook, we found a slightly wider than usual, with heavier than
the average flow, but that looked doable at several possible spots.  Fresh
Air was first and hopped across some rocks and didn't even get his boots
wet.  Dexter was scouting out another spot slightly down stream, and I
decided to follow Fresh Air.  I asked him to take some pictures in case I
made a great fall.  Alas, I must tell you there are no pictures of me
floundering in the cold depths.  I made it pretty easily - only getting my
boots slightly wet.

We crossed the Arlington-West Wardsboro Road, the end of the Trail Guide
Section.  You'd think with a name like that it would be a real road, but it
was just a well maintained dirt road.  There was a parking lot and a sign
for the AT and Stratton Mountain and some side trails which lay ahead, and a
couple of cars were there.  It was still a great day and it looked like we
would indeed break the pattern and have sun all day long.  There were some
bothersome bugs along the road, so we didn't tarry.  The climb was a steep
but not killer climb of a little under 4 miles.  I was surprised that some
of the taller peaks we had done in the last week or so, starting with
Greylock and on up to Stratton, were not that daunting.  I swear some of the
1400' peaks in New Jersey, with their rock climbs and boulder fields were
worse.

Whom should we find when we got to the summit, were the 2 of the fast guys.
They seemed to be having more problems with their feet.  For all their speed
they couldn't manage to stay ahead of us by very much.  This, even given the
fact that they had an almost 5 mile head start for today!

At the summit there was a fire tower that was open and Fresh Air went up to
take a few pictures.  I made it up a couple of flights of stairs, and that
was enough for me.  The view was terrific.  Although we didn't know exactly
which was which, the book said you could see the Whites.  We saw something
way off in that direction.  But the closer features, such as Somerset
Reservoir, Stratton Pond, Mount Pisgah to the south-east, Mount Snow to the
south, Mount Bromley to the north and Equinox across the valley beyond
Manchester were all awesome.  You could see the ski slopes on Snow and
Bromley, but not on Stratton itself.  You could just see the tops of the
summit ski lift buildings about a half mile to the north.  The layout of the
trail, whether intentional or accidental, preserved the isolation of the AT
from the slopes remarkably well.  Ironically you couldn't see Manchester
either, it was  just hidden too low down in  the valley.

The trail down to Stratton Pond was a text book example of the progression
of climate vs. altitude.  Near the top we went through Balsam Fir with deep
snow cover.  Lower we passed through Red Spruce, with open understory and
less snow.  Then came the Beech / Birch forest, not yet in leaf, with only
occasional patches of snow.  Then came the Viburnam and other shrubs under
the trees, and finally we got to the forest in full leaf.  In a more gradual
and regular way, we made the same progression we had in coming down off of
Greylock 4 days earlier - the passage from Winter to Spring in the space of
a few miles and a few hours.

We arrived at the Shelter, (unfortunately it was not on the shore
overlooking the pond as I hade hoped) and found a huge, magnificent
structure.  It slept at least 20 and had a porch, a loft (which would sleep
8 just by itself), double bunks, singles, doubles, floor space, picnic
table, pegs to hang things, an on and on.  And it was just the 3 of us.  We
literally rattled around inside such a large structure.  A couple of
weekenders came by to  check the place out but they decided to camp down by
the pond under the stars so we had the place to ourselves.  The sign said it
was built in 1999.  The water source was down by the pond, unfortunately a
good half mile further on.  There were two springs and I used the first,
which was rather paltry.  If I had gone a little further to the second
spring I would have found a much more robust spring with a pipe.

The pond was a beauty, unspoiled and lovely in the afternoon sun.  The
weather had definitely shifted a bit and we knew even though would stay
clear, tonight would be warmer than the previous 4 nights and we were quite
happy with that.  Although 30s to 40s may be good hiking weather, it's a bit
chilly cooking, packing, reading etc.

It was a perfect place and it had been a perfect day.  Life really IS good!

Day 13 Trail Miles 15.1; Other Miles 1.0
Total Trail Miles 174.0; Total Miles 180.2
============================

Day 14: May 23, 2002
Stratton Pond Shelter to Vermont Route 30 (Manchester)
Weather: Morning temperature 40.  Sun, blue sky.

The last day!  Tonight I would be home in New York.  The temperature was
warmer, around 40 (the first above freezing morning in almost a week) with
sun.  We got an early start at 7:10, although we had a bit of extra mileage
to get back to the trail down by the pond.  We took a few more photos there
and were off.  Dexter was still filtering some water but as usual he would
catch up later.

It was a beautiful easy walk through mostly Beech and Birch forests.  Some
of the huge Yellow Birches were awesome.  The stepping stones in the wet
sections was well done and when we got to the Windhall River we took a
break.  There was little elevation change in 3 or 4 miles.  We went through
an area called the Lye Brook Wilderness area.  The sign said a little about
what a wilderness area was, and one point made me laugh: it said "blow downs
that obstruct the trail may not be cleared".  Hah! by that measure we've
been going through wilderness since New Jersey!.  There was one spot just
outside the wilderness that we enjoyed seeing: a huge Birch had fallen
across the trail and was cut cleanly through with a chain saw.  The sawdust
was still there so it must have been cut in the last month.  On the butt end
of the exposed wood, was carved the AT symbol.  Cute - I liked the humor
that went into that. There was one bit of trail of about a mile on a dirt
road just past the Lye Brook Wilderness.  Why this was a road walk with
National Forest in every direction beats me.  Good place for a relo.

We went over to Spruce Peak Shelter for a lunch break.  We met Sam there,
who was leisurely working his way around the Stratton Area.  Fresh Air and I
both decided to cook an extra dinner meal we had for lunch, since who knows
when we would eat once we got on the bus home.  We knew we could make the
7:20 bus easily, but we thought there was an earlier one we could make so we
didn't tarry.

The last section of trail, out to Route 30 was similar but with a couple of
power lines and streams to cross.  Finally we got to the road, and took a
break.  I changed a few clothes, since it was now quite warm, and we found
Dexter.  He had gone past us while we were at Spruce Peak.  Besides saying
goodbye (he would be hiking for another week or so up the Long Trail) he
said that when he had got to the road, about 20 minutes ago, there were the
5 fast guys hitching a ride down to Manchester. So in 3 days those guys
never did get any lead over us!

We stuck our packs in front of us (so we wouldn't be mistaken for hobos),
and started trying to hitch.  We made sure we were by the parking lot so a
car would have a place to stop.  The spot was just down from a rise and turn
of the highway, and there were lots of fast moving trucks, so we knew it
would be a tricky place to get a ride.  Finally after about 15 minutes a
50ish guy stopped.  We put our packs in the back of his van which had a set
of golf clubs, and a couple of huge bowls of potato salad.  He said if we
messed up the salad he would get killed.  He was a lucky ride - we said we
wanted to get to the bus station  but we didn't know where it was.  he said
I'll take you right there.  On the way doen he explained the difference
betwen Manchester Center (the real town), Manchester Depot (the factory
outlet area), and Old Manchester (the historic part with the Equinox Hotel).
In the end he said it's all one town.

We got there about 1:30 and figured we'd have time to kill.  I found the bus
station.  It was a combination dry cleaners, Post Office and bus station.
The young woman there did all three jobs simultaneously.  The phone would
ring and she would say "Vermont Transit/Greyhound",  then someone would come
in to get their dry cleaning.  When I asked about bus tickets, she went to
the Post Office area, dug out some bus ticket forms and wrote us our
tickets.  It turns out the next bus was at 2:00 so we were very lucky with
the timing.  I'd be home by 7:30.

We bought some ice cream, waited under a tree and there was the bus, on time
we were headed home!

Day 14 Trail Miles 10.6; Other Miles .5
Total Trail Miles 184.6; Total Miles 191.3
============================

HIKE EVALUATION: How was it?, How did we do?

It was great and we did fine.

Seriously there are a few things we did right and some stuff we learned for
next time:

The Weather: unexpected but not a real problem.  It was nice we had the
Egremont Inn and Bascom Lodge at certain critical points but we know there
are always little escapes we can make if we need to.  Bascom in the snow on
that sunny Sunday morning was out of a story book.  I guess every cloud has
a silver lining.  My friends all seemed to ask "Were you prepared for that
weather", the answer is we were PREPARED for it but didn't EXPECT it.  More
fun that way.

Clothes:  The only thing I would second-guess would be to have my heavier
fleece shirt with the built in wind breaker shell  rather than my plain
reversible fleece shirt, AND a pair of wool gloves.  But my shirt actually
did yeoman duty, and I was warm when I was hiking and when I was sleeping.
The in between times I was a little cold.

Food: Fine.  We seemed to have perfected the fast boiling water zip lock bag
method.  We both had Pocket Rocket butane stoves and we were always faster,
lighter, cleaner and easier than any of the others we met.  The zip locks
served as both pot and bowl. Except for rinsing out my cup and licking my
spoon we set up, ate , and were done.  The freeze dried food (I know a bit
pricier but well worth it to me) worked very well.

Stuff: Camera (Nikon  Coolpix 775 7 oz.) was a champ: see all the pictures
(Note about 30 of those in the Gallery were taken by Fresh Air).  Stove
(Pocket Rocket 3 oz.) - great, Sleeping bag - very good (Marmot Aroyo 1lb,
14 oz.). Tent (Sierra Designs Ultra Lightyear, 3 lb. 2 oz.) - really great.
It was always warm and dry (inside) in heavy rain or snow. Pack (Kelty
Flight 3 lb. 2 oz.) - Better. Still having problems with balance.  Boots
(EMS Mirage II) - good.  A few blisters at first but they generally kept me
warm and dry under very wet and cold conditions.  A slight soreness on my
right instep bothered me.  I need to put a little padding there.

Next week it's onward to the next section
Pb